The Christmas Truce and other military disasters
by The Dangerous One
Summary: OK, history-based, somewhat crack-ish, but still good! I hope First, the story of spontanious peace on the battlefield; second, the brilliant idea of "Let's swap deserts with the British!" On temporary hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

**(A.N. This has been nagging at the back of my head for some time now. Some of you may have seen the Hetalia Christmas strip where Germany is in the trenches and England kicks a soccer/football ball into his face. This is based on the historical event that that strip was: The Christmas Truces. It's pretty cool. And they made a movie about it. ^_^ But anyway, on with the story!)****  
**Disclaimer: Nothing is mine! Nothing, I say! NOTHING!****

The time was World War One.**  
**The location was Ypres, Belgium.****

Nobody had expected the fighting to last long. The Allied forces of England, France, Russia, the United States, Italy, and Japan believed that victory would be theirs fairly quickly. The Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey) believed that _they _would be the winners. And so, through a system of alliances that ended up acting like a domino chain, practically the whole world was at war with each other. The war started in 1914. It was Christmas, now. "I really don't want to fight on Christmas. It is the season of goodwill, after all." Nobody really felt like fighting. Not the British, not the Germans. Especially not on Christmas Eve. Germany was sitting in the trenches at Ypres looking at a calendar. From his position, he could see some of his soldiers, both dead and alive, further down the trench, and his older brother Prussia sleeping next to him. Just as the sun began to rise in the sky, he heard music. Why could he hear music? None of his troops were singing... (1)**  
**Could it be the English singing?**  
**Carefully, cautiously, Germany poked his head up out of his side of the trenches. Mein gott, they _were_singing! They were bringing out christmas trees and England was walking toward the German trenches carrying a football and a box. As if to test the waters, England threw the box into the German trenches. Surprised and a little scared, Germany swatted it away and the chocolates spilled out. "So it was just chocolate..." "Of course it was just chocolate. I may not like you very much, but I wouldn't bomb you on Christmas. Do you want to take a break from fighting today? Let's play football."**  
****'**_He seems so...sincere. I don't trust him very much, but it is Christmas. He says he doesn't want to fight, and I don't either, so...' _**"**Sure, I don't see why n-"**  
**Germany got a football to the face. "Mein gott! What was that for?" "That was for the Merchant Navy (2)!" **  
**England got a football to the face.**  
**The game was on.****

In other parts of the field, soldiers were exchanging food, drink, and souvenirs from both sides. One of England's machine gunners was cutting the hair of one of Germany's soldiers whose hair was unnaturally long. Some caught sight of Germany and England's football match, and soon it became a free-for-all with fifty on each side (3) before they agreed upon regular matches with eleven on each who would switch out periodically. Small fires were lit and chestnuts were roasted (4). The end of the day found Germany and England lying side by side beside each other, looking at the sunset. "I suppose we'll have to keep fighting tomorrow," England said, sad that something so good had to end. "The men seemed to have fun today." "Do we have to?" Germany wondered out loud. "The high command probably would." (5) "To hell with the high command, when we aren't shooting at each other, we can recover bodies from no-man's land and bury them properly. And these truces might help relations after the war. (6) Let's keep the ceasefire until the new year. (7) The men will support it, at least." **  
**The men supported it so much, they wanted to have another one the next year, assuming the war went on that long. **  
**The high command opposed it so much, they gave the soldiers schedules to fire artillery towards the enemy lines, even on Christmas and New Year's. **  
**That didn't stop the French and German troops stationed on the Bernhardstein (one of the mountains in the Vosges) from exchanging wine, cognac and cigarettes for Westphalian black bread, biscuits, and ham in December of 1915. They liked that so much, that those soldiers maintained their friendship even after Christmas (8).****

**(A.N. OK, so this is the first chapter for The Christmas Truce (and other military disasters). Basically, the rest of the fic is based on the pretense that if you look deep enough, there are kooky, random things that happen between enemies (or allies, for that matter). Next up: The Great Desert Raid! ****  
****History Notes****  
****1. Technically, the Germans sang first, but there was singing!****  
****2. The total dead from the Merchant Navy was 14,661. Of course, that figure is from the end of WWI, but still... O.o****  
****3. That actually happened. One guy brought out a soccer/football ball and everybody joined in.****  
****4. This is referencing a bit of fanart that I saw at a Hetalia History panel someone had taped on YouTube. If you type in Hetalia History in the YouTube search bar, it's the video that's like two hours long. It's really good, though!****  
****5. They didn't. They really didn't. Fun-wreckers...****  
****6. That didn't work, either. Germany went into major debt at the end of the war because of England and France.****  
****7. In some places, the Christmas Truces did last until New Year's Day, some only lasted until Christmas Day. ****  
****8. Again, this happened. Funnily enough, the fighting at Bernhardstein was some of the most violent. Funny how these things happen...)**


	2. Chapter 2

**(A.N. Thank you to PunkIggy for reviewing! As promised, the Great Dessert Raid of World War One. I first heard about this in a History of Hetalia panel on YouTube, but I can't find it on Google. It really happened, I just can't find it at the moment. Anyway...)****  
**Standard Disclaimers Apply****

Since the Christmas Truces of the previous year, all contact had been prohibited between the two opposing lines except fighting the English/Germans, of course. However, tension was building in the trenches. Almost a year after the infamous truces, Ludwig saw that his brother was acting up more than usual. "Vat is it, bruder?" he asked after a while. "I don't really know, Vest. I suppose that...vell...you promise you von't laugh?" "I promise. Vat is the matter?" "It's these _verdamnt_desserts. Ve have the same one every day and it's starting to get really annoying!" Ludwig laughed. He couldn't help it, even though he agreed. And so, a plan was formed. Ludwig, Feliciano, and Gilbert would sneak over to enemy lines and steal their desserts. And try to get information, just to make it official. But mainly, they would get the desserts. (1)**  
**The Great Dessert Raid, as it was later called, was largely a success. Ludwig, Gilbert, and Feliciano woke up before the enemies started firing at each other. They met a trusted soldier who wouldn't rat them out at the left side of the German trenches and started to sneak over to the English side. **  
**Under the cover of darkness, the English Captain James Joyce (2) and a group of his men started to come back from no-man's land. They had gone out to recover the bodies of their dead colleagues without too much fear of being shot at. Luck was not on their side tonight, however. They stumbled across a group of Axis soldiers attempting to get over to the English side. They were outnumbered and before they knew it, the English were surrounded and held at gunpoint. "Give us all your desserts and nobody will get hurt!" Cpt. Joyce's jaw nearly hit the ground. Was that _really_all they wanted? There must be more to it. "E-excuse me?" "Your desserts! Hand them over!" Half nervous half trying not to laugh out loud, Cpt. Joyce and the men that had come with him took out their mess kits, removed the desserts, and gave them to the strange Germans, who then grabbed the desserts, yelled "Get down and don't look up for five minutes!", jumped into the English truck, and drove off towards the German lines.****

**"**I can't believe we pulled this off!" "I can't wait to try their desserts!" "They are _English _desserts. I wonder if they're any good..." Inside the stolen English truck, Ludwig, Gilbert, Feliciano, and the soldier were excited by the prospect of something-anything-breaking the dreaded monotony. Morale was high until they heard a rather loud BANG from outside and the soldier stopped the truck. "Gentlemen, we have acquired a 'flat'." "WHAT?" (3)****

**"**Sir! Sir! There are Germans in no-man's land! They took our food!" "And yet, you still have your mess tins." The Englishmen looked at each other rather sheepishly, turned towards each other, and had a frantic game of rock, paper, scissors. The loser stepped forward. "Well, ...they just took the desserts, sir." "They what?"****

The German soldier was having a bit of a rough time. Here he was, just trying to do his job, and his commander and a random Italian count or something were trying to tell him what to do. Eventually, he had had enough. "If you will just let me do my job, then maybe we'll get out of here alive! We _are_in no-man's land, after all! The English could be coming for us at any minute!" ****

**"**We have to find those damn Nazis! come on, men! Let's look for them!"****

**"**Oh mein gott, there they are! Hurry up! The English are coming!" "Got it, sir!" "Thank god..."****

**"**What's this English truck doing here in the middle of no-man's land? Meh. Who cares? If they're in an English truck, they must be on our side!" "Right you are, commander!" "Onwards, men!"****

The English never caught on to the fact that there were _Axis soldiers_inside the English truck.**  
**So, they just ignored it. (4)

Historical Notes:

1. This actually happened. According to the panel, this is pretty much exactly what happened.

2. I'm not sure who exactly was the English commander who went out into no-man's land, but they did end up basically being a victim of armed robbery there. O.o

3. Yep, they got a flat. You know the saying that 'everything that can go wrong will go wrong'?

4. People can be so oblivious sometimes, can't they...

**(A.N. The Great Dessert Raid! Tomorrow is my last day of school, and because I do 100% of my typing at school, the updates will be coming much slower for the next two/three months. I will be updating, it might be a while between them, though... Have a great summer, everyone!) **


	3. I'm back!

Hi guys! School's back in and I'm going to start updating more regularly now! I should have really put my stories on hiatus, but I was too lazy, really. Anyways, I'm back now with ideas for more stories (but I'm going to finish the two I'm working on first) and it's going to be great!

-Live Dangerously


	4. Summary of the Roman Empire

**(A.N. I'm Back! Yay! :D Anyway, (hopefully) making up for lost time, here's Rome with the history of his empire. The next couple of updates will be explanations of events that are referenced in the anime but not really given much thought.)**

Standard Disclaimers Apply

Summary of the Roman Empire  
Episode #1; 2:21-2:40

We're going way, _way_back to explain this one. Like back to 756 BC. If you look up the reference on the FUNimation website or YouTube channel, Germany just says the bare bones version of Rome. I don't know about you, but this left me wondering about if there was anything else. There was way more stuff that Rome got up to than they mention in the episode. Here it is, in Hetalia style, the history of Rome.

According to legend, Rome was founded by a pair of brothers, Romulus and Remus, who had been raised by wolves. Rome's parents were Ancient Greece and Troy. His legacy contained the Italies, France (taken from Gaul), Spain (taken from Carthage), and Byzantium. Byzantium "inherited" half the Roman Empire, but good ol' Byzie decided that he wanted to take after his mother and act Greek and speak Greek. Rome probably wouldn't have been happy about that. Grandpa Rome had many relationships with the other Mediterranean countries/empires. Troy started it all when he ticked off Greece and she killed him and Rome fled to Italy as a result. He traded with Ancient Egypt and got up in her vital regions for a bit. Then, he got into wars. His first was actually three of them lumped together by historians. Rome and Carthage were fighting over Sicily. At first, they shared but after a while, Rome decided he didn't want to share. The first one was on the sea. Carthage had a really good navy and Rome was a noob at fighting, so he was all "I'm Rome! I live on the ocean! What are ships?" So Rome just decided to copy Carthage's design and added a bit that he could lower onto other ships to take over and he wouldn't have to even touch the water. He could ram into enemy ships, put his army on the other ship, kill everyone, and then they would have another ship. They also hired Greek sailors because they actually knew what they were doing. In the second war, Hannibal tried to invade Rome. After coming the long way around (through what is now France, Switzerland, Austria, and down through Italy) and dissolving boulders with acid and bringing elephants (yes, elephants), he had to camp outside the city limits because he couldn't get in, the Romans sold the land his army was on just to spite Carthage, and killed Hannibal when he was retreating. The third war isn't much of a war because the Romans just laid siege to Carthage for years and when all was said and done, they burned it to the ground (a two week-long process). You know what, let's just play a game. The first question is How many waifus does Rome have? (out of Gaul, Germania, and the Celtic Isles) The answer is all of 'em! Next question, How many of them loved him and the answer is none. Forever alone... (Forever a-Rome?) When Rome tried to invade the Celtic Isles, he got as far as the bottom edge of Scotland, but the locals hated the Romans so they put on blue body paint and jumped out of the trees and beat the crap out of the invading Romans, who were so freaked out they left. The emperor at the time (Emperor Hadrian) decided to build a wall separating what is now Scotland with England and left them alone. Except if you count that time when some Romans decided to try to trade with some friendly Scots, but that's another story. Then came Mongolia. He wasn't too well-liked because he beat the ever-loving snot out of everybody he met, basically. He collected the same amount of land Rome did in 100 years in about 21. But anyway, everybody towards the end of the fifth century BC started to gang up on Rome. While Rome was busy fighting them off, Mongolia came in and just waited for the city to fall; which wasn't very long. Rome was pretty weak because he lost all of his stuff. The Roman currency was starting to lose its value so they made lots more of it (like Germany did after WW1), which caused inflation. That's really bad for a nation in his state of decline. After a gradual decline in power, Rome lost in battle to Germania and died.

**(A.N. Nice job being a bit of a dick to everyone, Rome! I got most of my information from the Hetalia: Ancient Spice Panel on YouTube; 19:23-24:48. Next up will be How Italy Became a Victim of Bullying.)**


	5. How Italy Became a Victim of Bullying

**(A.N. So, staying with the Italies, here's what really happened between them and Spain, France, Austria, and HRE. If you catch the Horrible Histories reference, you're awesome!)****  
**  
Standard Disclaimers Apply

After the Roman Empire fell in 476 AD, Italy split into separate "city-states" that fought all the time. Particularly bad mini-wars were between Milan and Venice, who had sort of a sibling rivalry between them. I say mini-wars because each of the five great Italian powers (Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples, and the Papal States) had an equal amount of power; none had the ability to defeat the others. This pretty much stops after 1454, when Venice and Milan signed a treaty at Lodi. Later that same year, Florence joined Venice and Milan in peace and in 1455 the Pope and the king of Naples join in an alliance, sometimes called the Italian League, in which all five powers pledge "mutual non-aggression". The peace holds pretty well except for the tension between Milan and Naples. And the assassination attempt on Lorenzo de' Medici's life. And the attack by Naples on Florence that was sponsored by the Pope... But otherwise, all fine! Or so we thought! In 1494, the duke of Milan urges the king of France (Charles VIII) to come and attack Naples. It takes a little persuasion, but in September 1494, he comes over the Italian Alps with 30,000 men. They pass peacefully through Milan and expect to do the same through Florence's Truscan lands, because they're only after Naples. But, Florence had recently become Naples' ally. Trying to head off any disputes, the young Piero de' Medici makes his way to the French camp in an act of diplomacy. Both rulers were young and inexperienced (in their early 20's), and the French are better off. Charles emphasizes that all he wants is an assurance of Florence's goodwill, but adds that a convincing token of this 'goodwill' would be to also hand over the ports of Pisa and Livorno. Records suggest that the French are astonished when Piero agrees. Charles and his men gladly occupy Pisa and in 1495 Charles VIII reaches Rome. They are met with no resistance, and Pope Alexander VI takes shelter in the Castel Sant' Angelo. On February 22nd, the French enter Naples and two months later Charles is crowned king of his new city. But not for long! The other Italian powers don't really like that and everyone except Florence goes to chase out the French. There was a battle at Fornovo that quickly became confused and ended with an undecided victor, so Charles and co. decided to go back to France. That was, believe it or not, the easy part. Because of Charlie, the rest of Europe wants a piece of Italy for themselves. Northern Italy becomes an almost permanent international battleground in the 16th century. In 1529, Francis I (really his name) renounces all French rights in Milan and Naples, and from 1540 to 1713 Milan was directly annexed to the Spanish crown. After a few battles, it was under Austrian control. Naples was also Spanish-then Austrian-but became Spanish again in 1738. Until 1700, the Spanish Habsburgs (the same family Maria Theresa came from, but she was Austrian) had the most control over Italy, but it got split (pretty cleanly) in half; the Spanish kept the southern half (Romano) and the Austrian Habsburgs got the north (Veninziano). In spite of all this fighting, 18th century Italy was a pretty sleepy place until Napoleon came along in 1796. Among those against France were the Austrians (who wanted to defend Milan and their surrounding territories) and Sardinia (a small island off the southern coast of France). Napoleon snuck up behind the Austrians and caught them with their pants down, so to speak. Because of this, the French gained much of Italy. The Austrians were jealous, so during the winter of 1796-7, there are several complicated engagements with the French (and not in that way, Hungary! Put your camera down before one of them sees you!). By April, the French are strong enough to take on Vienna, and the Austrians back off. After Der Kongress Danses, Italy goes back to what it was before the French came in. A hundred years later, Italy was still going through his prickly teenage phase (if you can imagine Italy being a prickly teenager); rebelling against his Austrian guardians. On March 17th, civilians in Venice rebelled against the Austrians and the next day the citizens of Milan do the same. After five days of fighting, they throw out 12,000 troops that had been stationed there. But, in July 1849, the French try again, and they acquire Rome. In August of the same year, Venice and Milan go back to the Austrians, and that's the end of that. But not for long! Well for about 20 years, give or take a few, anyway. In 1861, the north and the south unify into one Italy and then the world wars break out. This marks the point when Italy stops being bullied as a cute little chibi and begins being bullied as an absolutely adorable country. The rest, as they say, is history.

**(A.N. Sorry if this seems a little packed with info, but I'm working on a chapter about the British-American Non-Intercourse Act of 1809. It should be up by this time next week, but I've got another mainly factual chapter explaining the whole cuckoo clocks scene.)**


	6. AxisCentric

**(A.N. Sorry I didn't update yesterday! Blame my Physics teacher for giving us a test AND homework due for the same day... :P Anyway, I'm going to have the chapter about the British-American Non-Intercourse Act up by tomorrow. These chapters will probably end up deleted from here and put into their own fic, but for the time being...)****  
**The Effects of WW1 on Postwar Germany and the Tripartite Pact  
Standard Disclaimers Apply

So, what's with Germany and his cuckoo clocks? Well, the First World War ended with the Treaty of Versailles. All the Allied nations were there (except America, who was busy with the League of Nations). The absence of America allowed England and France do what they _really_ wanted to do, which was to punish Germany. Industrial output had fallen by over 40% between 1914 and 1918. 35% of all trade was on the Black Market and England and France didn't help much. Basically what they said was: any type of military industry-stopping that; any type of military expansion-stopping that; unification with any other German-speaking peoples-doesn't need to happen; no need for any kind of national self-determination; and by the way, that war was all your fault and you have to pay us back. Not much, just somewhere around 132 billion marks (about 442 bil. US dollars or 284 bil. English pounds today). So not too bad, right? Wrong. Germany had just finished fighting (and losing) a major war, and now they have quite a bit of debt to pay back. Are you surprised that they went into a bit of a depression? This depression turned into hyperinflation when they decided to make more money to solve their problems without having any kind of industry to back that up. People would literally go from their jobs to the market with a wheelbarrow full of money but would have to run as fast as they could because their money was actively devaluing as they ran. And then Adolf Hitler came to power. So to sum up, they were financially f*ked by the end of the war, got the thing they did best taken away, and before you know it you've already been to Bad and Worse is five miles down the road.  
End the intermission! It's time for World War 2!  
In the anime (episode 4, 0:59-1:02), Japan and Germany sign a document at a heated kotatsu table while Italy sleeps with an orange on his head. It wasn't that cheerful and cute, unfortunately. The document was called the Tripartite Pact, the Tripartite Treaty, the Axis Pact, or the Three-Way Pact (seriously!). It was signed on September 27th, 1940 by representatives of Nazi Germany (Adolf Hitler), Fascist Italy (foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano), and Imperial Japan (Japanese ambassador to Germany Saburo Kurusu) in the hope that it would discourage America (neutral at the time) from coming into World War 2. Instead of making the US think twice after Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941-Japan bombed the American port on one of the Hawaiian islands) they just declared war on all three countries. Nice going, Axis. Of course, they still beat the crap out of Europe for about half of the war, but (as we know) the Allies pulled out in the end. As Eddie Izzard puts it, "We came in first in the Second World War, but we were financially fucked by the end of it. 'Cause there was a period of time when it was just us (England, France, China, Canada, and Russia) and the Nazis; and they'd been making weapons for ages. They had a head start and we were saying 'Get the tanks out! Get the-we haven't got any tanks! Get that ice cream out there! Get it out! Kill! All right-oh, fuck it. Throw everything! Just throw anything! _Fuck off, you bastards!_ Pots and Pans! Get the pots-just throw the pots and pans at them!' "

**(A.N. How eloquent :D I love Eddie Izzard...)**


End file.
